That's a great idea, Ray; I never would have thought of that. It certainly sounds better than my method, which is to glue a small piece of emery cloth on one of the jaws.

Syl's Midge! I'd forgotten about that pattern; Nemes was the perfect voice for the renaissance of the soft hackle.

Scraggly? I think not. This is the pattern that the Bread Crust has always aspired to be; the Bread Crust grew up tattooed trailer trash, while Norm's Scraggly is kin to John Houseman and Hah-vahd.

What Ron said: I love the woodcock tie. Nicely done.

One thing I try to do when I've blasphemed a classic is pay homage to those from the past with a wee dram of a good single malt. Ahhh, nice! Wait, ...define 'wee' for me. Washing away all the backsliding with wee drams of Speyburn is a habit here as well. I even tweak my scotch; I started putting a...

T12... I respect your feelings about the classics. Afraid I may be guilty of degrading their purity from time to time. I like the way you phrased that. I myself am guilty of the same, though my crimes might rise to 'assault'; I beat the ever livin' shite out them sometimes. In the end, I always hav...

My two favorite materials: grouse and hare. Fortunately for me, I have these these creatures in abundance up here. The hare is wonderful stuff, if a little unmanageable at times; the wild stuff is like that. Like Rick, I tie most of my hare up on a block. I've never really given the underfur much th...

Wayne.... ok if you insist.... I'll just screw around and perhaps screw up the Guides choice... so with proper credit to Terrestrial12, Ohlie's flies, Kelly Galloup, and Fly Fish Food... here's a mash up Guides choice FM 50-45 size 12 3.8 copper slotted bead, burned with torch ala Ohlie's flies tai...

What Wayne said.

Hank - That’s what my folks used to hold the kindling to start their wood stoves, and clean out the ash periodically. I never heard it called a “hod”. Interesting. Learn something new here everyday. Here in northern New England, my grandfather would tell me to fetch a 'hod' of coal up from the cell...